Comments on: Scheduling around the world: www.doodle.com

By: Bryce

Bryce — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:25:35 +0000

The timezone setting is awful. I clicked yes to timezone support; within the poll I have it set to Toronto time; all of the subscribers IP addresses (including mine) are set to the same timezone. And yet the poll is defaulting to the dreaded Rainy River/America. What gives? THis makes no sense.

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 03 May 2011 01:00:13 +0000

I love Doodle except for one feature – and that is the way it automatically sets the timezone. For me it always comes up with “America/Rainy River” – I have no idea where “Rainy River” is in America, so I have no idea whether the times listed are in my time zone or not. Also I use polls with government folks from all across U.S. who’s IP addresses don’t always match their physical location. Result is always somebody who entered the wrong times for a poll.

I think setting the timezone based on an IP address is just too prone to error and confusion. You need to find a more robust solution. Perhaps you ask a user the first time for their timezone and then store it as a cookie? Also show it more prominently right beside the times they enter?

By: Reto @ Doodle

Reto @ Doodle — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 16:56:01 +0000

@Scott,

Thanks for the feedback. I see your point. Though we really want to make the table as compact as possible. Appending the timezone to each time option would blow up the table-width tremendously.
BTW: Have you tried our new design? Open a poll link and click on “Try our new design (BETA)” on the upper right corner. You still think it’s a problem?

Best,
Reto

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 16:41:31 +0000

It would seem to make more sense to list the time zone next to the times. THen there would never be any confusion. 11:00 AM (EST) is unambiguous to the creator and users of the poll. 11:00 AM with a dropdown in the upper right corner is not nearly as much so.

By: Reto @ Doodle

Reto @ Doodle — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:06:04 +0000

@Dennis Coyne,

Thanks for your feedback. We do show a timezone drop-down list once timezone support is enabled. This should give enough indication that timezone support is active. For each participant, it will automatically select the right timezone. At anytime you can manually change the timezone and the poll options will change accordingly.

Hope that helps.

Reto
P.S. Some more info on timezone support
http://doodle.com/about/faq.html#timezonesupport
http://doodle.com/about/faq.html#timezoneselection

By: Dennis Coyne

Dennis Coyne — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:52:13 +0000

Once one has created a schedule poll, neither the participant nor the administrator can tell if the poll has time zone support or not. There should be a note indicating the time zone.

In addition when someone is filling out the poll at one geographical location (time zone) for a future event in which they will have re-located to another location (time zone), it would be useful for the participant to select the time zone that they would like to respond in.

By: Reto @ Doodle

Reto @ Doodle — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:51:30 +0000

@ Brian Cashman,

Thanks for the feedback. Fully agree with you. We’ll have it fixed in one of our upcoming releases.

Reto

By: Brian Cashman

Brian Cashman — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:29:32 +0000

I wonder if it’d be possible to clarify the timezone link? It says “with time-zone support” and it’s not clear if you need to click this link to get timezone support or whether timezone support is turned on by default (and therefore clicking the link turns it off). It might be good if the link said (for example), “click for time-zone support” or “time-zone support is not enabled, click here the enable it.”

Since you can’t change the timezone support feature once the poll is created it might be good to say that explicitly.

By: Reto @ Doodle

Reto @ Doodle — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:54:00 +0000

@SCK:

Did you enable timezone support when setting up your poll? On the wizard page, where you enter the times, there is a link called “Timezone support”. Click on that the next time you setup a poll and the participants will automatically see the suggested times in their timezones.

Remark: Once your poll is created, you can’t enable/disable timezone support anymore. You will have to recreate your poll.

By: SCK

SCK — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:29:33 +0000

When setting this up, I entered times (in my time zone – Eastern U.S.) and sent the participant link to someone in San Diego. The times did not convert to Pacific Time. How do I get this to work? I’m trying to schedule an international teleconference.